


we're nothing and nothing will help us (we could be heroes just for one day)

by awkwardspiritanimals



Series: we could be heroes [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Fitz-centric, blood and violence warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:05:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardspiritanimals/pseuds/awkwardspiritanimals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no way he can fight Grant Ward. Grant Ward is half a foot taller and all of it is pure muscle and years of training, and Fitz has only ever been in one fight in his entire life, which he lost badly and quickly. But he is the only thing standing between Ward and the team, and so he will stand his ground and try not to lose too quickly to give them as much time to get away as he can. But he will lose, the inevitability of it staring him in the face as Ward glares at him and the team shouts his name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're nothing and nothing will help us (we could be heroes just for one day)

There is no way he can fight Grant Ward. Grant Ward is half a foot taller and all of it is pure muscle and years of training, and Fitz has only ever been in one fight in his entire life, which he lost badly and quickly. But he is the only thing standing between Ward and the team, and so he will stand his ground and try not to lose too quickly to give them as much time to get away as he can. But he will lose, the inevitability of it staring him in the face as Ward glares at him and the team shouts his name.

"Go," he says, clenching his fists to keep them from shaking. He should let someone else do this, the logical part of his brain says. May or Coulson or Trip or literally anyone but him. But for an engineer, Leo Fitz is extraordinarily good at ignoring the logical part of his brain. "Look after them," he says, and he is speaking to all of them about all of the others. He will protect them in this moment, but after that the chances of him being around to do it are absolutely zero, so they will have to protect each other. There are so many things he wants to say, but there is no time, no time for anything except to stare at Ward and make peace with the fact that he is going to die here, in a dingy corridor under some S.H.I.E.L.D. base HYDRA had taken over at the hands of a man he considered a friend.

"Look after them, and GO!" he shouts, voice cracking on the last word, and he won’t look back at them, can hear Jemma yelling his name, can feel May’s eyes, Coulson’s eyes, on the back of his head, and then there are footsteps as they run, and Jemma’s voice echoes down the hallway as he and Ward stare at each other.

"Move, Fitz," the taller man growls, and Fitz shakes his head, balling his fists, taking up as much of the corridor as he can with his slim body.

"No," he says, and Ward’s first strike hits him square across the face. Blood pours from his nose over his face, and he staggers against the wall for a moment. Stars are erupting inside his head, and his mouth is full of blood, which he spits at Ward as he forces himself upright again. He didn’t feel anything break, but there’s so much blood; _Jemma would know_ , he thinks fuzzily, _Jemma_ _is smarter, she would know if my nose is broken_.

"Move, Fitz, or I’ll kill you."

"No." It’s the only word he can manage through the spotlights in his eyes and the blood in his mouth. He feels Ward’s second punch split open his lip, and the third one slams into his solar plexus. Gasping, choking, he drops to his knees, still in front of Ward.

_I want Simmons to be the one to tell my mum. Mum always loved her. I loved her so much_. He has slipped into the past tense without realizing it as he forces himself to his feet with all the will power in his body. _May and Coulson believed in me_ , he thinks, as he somehow manages to stumble out of the way of one of Ward’s swings. _I failed them, but I won’t in this_ , lashing out a foot while Ward is off balance, connecting with his knee. It draws the faintest sound of pain from the other man, and Fitz grins for a moment; his face is a bloody mess, he is going to die, but he has managed one hit and he can no longer hear the team’s footsteps behind him.

He’ll be able to hear Jemma’s voice in his head for the rest of his life, which at least won’t be long. A small mercy, he thinks, as he feels a rib give under Ward’s next hit as her voice echoes in his head. _Thank you for being my friend_ , he responds to her pleading voice ringing in his ears, _I needed a friend so badly and you were perfect, and this is how I will repay you. I’m sorry_. He manages to spit blood into Ward’s eyes this time, lashes out with his left arm, pain flaring up his side like lightning as he shoves the bigger man back.

Everything is taking on a red-tinted, hollow feeling, and he is remembering a conversation with Coulson a few months ago. He had been tinkering in the lab late at night, unable to sleep, and Coulson had joined him; thinking back, it’s less of a conversation and more Coulson telling him a story, about Captain America, he remembers as Ward’s fist connects again, spraying Fitz’s blood across the wall. Fitz staggers, pain engulfing everything as he forces himself to stay upright with sheer force of will. He will give them every second he can.

Growing up in Glasgow there had not been a lot of talk about Cap really, and so he had never heard the story Coulson had told with boyish enthusiasm, which he tries to remember now. There had been a quote, which Coulson had said with the reverence of a prayer. He’s a good man, Coulson, and he’ll take care of them. He’ll make sure she’s safe.

He hopes they remember him well, this moment where he stood for them, those moments when he made them laugh, when he was there, when he was brilliant and when he was stupid, and he hopes they remember that he loved them and that is why he is willing to die for them, because he loved them and they were good, all of them, and deserved to live. He hopes they smile when they remember him.

Another rib gives, and he remembers lying on the floor of his dorm at the Academy, Jemma’s fingers skating over his ribs, naming them with a slight slur. He stumbles over Ward’s sweeping leg, and he will not be able to stay standing much longer, and he remembers Skye, hiding around corners for a week, sticking her foot out, laughing high and bright when he tripped every time. He drops to one knee, remembers a morning with May, when they were both up before the rest of the Bus, when she had invited him to do Tai Chi with her. God, he’d been awful, and she had only laughed a little, and he is glad now that he had ever in his life gotten Melinda May to laugh.

“Move, Fitz!” Ward roars, his voice echoing in the confined hallway.

“No,” he whispers, and he remembers Coulson, bright-eyed at two o’clock in the morning, whispering a story about his hero. There is no river of truth here, just a slowly spreading puddle of Fitz’s blood, and he doesn’t have the strength to plant himself anywhere, but he has pissed Ward off, and given them all a chance, and so he has the strength to force himself to stand. He sets his feet apart, watches fireworks explode in his eyes, and grins. That smile is all he has left in this world.

“No, you move,” he says, and for a second there is recognition behind Ward’s eyes, and if he hadn’t just been trying to kill Fitz, he would have thought it might have been pride. They stand there, panting, and then Ward hits Fitz so hard across the face that he spins around. There’s no standing after that, and he can barely push himself to his knees, and why won’t Ward just kill him. He’s betrayed them, the one thing that Fitz can never forgive, and he had come into this fight ready to die and he is so ready, he thinks.

He has said goodbye to them all, he has taken his punches and he has gotten in his one liner, which he in fact had stolen from someone else. He’s not a superhero, who escapes at the last minute, who lives to fight another day; he’s a skinny engineer from Scotland with zero combat experience, who dies for the people he loves because it’s the only tool he has left, who wins the days for them at the cost of his own. Grant Ward towering over him is the last thing he’ll ever see, and even though he chose it, it still seems unfair when there are so many better things to see.

Jemma, in the low light of the lab at 3 in the morning or the bright sunlight of Peru or running into his arms when he thought he had lost her. The sunrise from the roof of his house in Glasgow. The sunset from the top of the tallest building at the Academy. The stars out the window of the Bus, reflecting double in the ocean, surrounding him in celestial light. Jemma, in whatever way she chose to be. I hope she knew.

_I hope she knew I loved her, and that she was perfect, that she was the best person I knew and I loved her more than anything because of it. I hope she knew._ His shoulder pops out of place as Ward’s boot slams into it. The pain flares there for seconds before melting back into a general ache everywhere, spiking with each thump of his too fast pulse. Her voice fades in and out, pleading for him to run, and he wants to tell her he can’t, that he has forgotten how to run, how to walk, how to crawl, and there is no one to carry him.

_My little lion_ , his mother used to call him. _You’re the hero_ , Jemma had said before kissing him on the cheek. He has never in his life felt worthy of those titles, and he doesn’t now, but the memory of their voices fills his battered chest with warmth for just a moment.

A kick to the ribs sends him sprawling, and he’s crying now, he can feel the tears hot down his face, even with all the blood. Back up to his knees, and he doesn’t want to die, can feel it desperate in his chest, but they needed him and they are, all of them, the only things worth dying for. Coulson and Jemma and probably Trip, they would die for justice and goodness and mercy and grand ideas, he thinks. But May, though, she’s like him; she’d understand, and he hopes she can try to explain it to them, why they were worth dying for, why they are so much more important than any grand belief.

And he hates the idea of dying, can feel it boiling in his stomach, but he’s ready for it to happen, so when Ward raises his fist high to finally deliver what must be, what has to be, what he is begging to be the final blow, he keeps his eyes open and stares right at Ward. Leo Fitz is going to die, and he is going to die staring death straight in the face.

And then he doesn’t die.

There’s a sound from behind him, and one of Ward’s shoulders jerks back and his face glows faintly blue from dendrotoxin. Fitz stares at the crumpled form in front of him and promptly throws up, everything in his stomach and more, until he’s just dry heaving spit into the puddle of blood in front of him. He forces himself to fall backwards, against the wall, so he can see May with an ICER in her hands and Jemma, tears falling, kneeling in front of him and capturing his face between her hands. His blood smears under her fingers, and in the dim lighting of the hall and with his blurry vision, she looks alive with celestial light, like she has swallowed the stars exploding in his head and turned them into glory.

“You know, right?” he asks, and she looks at him confused for a moment, and it is suddenly so important that she know, the only important thing at all left in his battered body, “You know I love you?” And he hopes she understands that he means it differently than he’s ever meant it before, and he watches her eyes carefully.

“Yes, Leo,” she says, brushing at the tears on his cheeks, and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.

“Okay. Okay. Good,” Fitz whispers, and then he’s out of words and energy and probably blood, and he passes out.

When he wakes up, he’s disoriented and tired and literally every part of his body hurts like it is on fire, but Jemma is sitting next to him, her fingers tangled with his so that it takes his blurry head a second to figure out where he ends and she begins. She smiles at him, and kisses his forehead softly, and when unconsciousness wells up over him again, her smile is the last thing he sees.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from David Bowie's "Heroes."
> 
> The Captain America quote mentioned is this: “Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, YOU move.”
> 
> Part 1 of the 'we could be heroes' series.


End file.
